Emmanuel Adebayor once told Arsène Wenger that he would play for Arsenal for free. The fee for his services now is closer to a six-figure weekly sum, but the Togo forward is aware of what it means to have nothing.

Adebayor hails from a place of such poverty that the wealth and celebrity he has accrued has led to a life almost beyond his comprehension. “I pinch myself every day when I wake up,” he said. Where he will wake up each day next season is open to question. Adebayor wants an increase on his weekly wage, which is about £35,000, and Arsenal are considering allowing him to leave, but negotiations are on hold. “At the moment, nothing’s decided,” Stéphane Courbis, the player’s agent, said. “We don’t communicate for the moment.”

Arsenal’s valuation of £30 million has priced the 24-year-old out of AC Milan’s reach, but Barcelona are interested. The situation is muddied, though, because Joan Laporta, the Spanish club’s president, faces a vote of no confidence tomorrow.

Arsenal bought Adebayor from AS Monaco in 2006 for £4.2 million. “I was holidaying in Togo, playing football and my mobile rang,” he told the BBC. It was Wenger, the Arsenal manager. “It’s him, that voice that never changes: ‘Adebayor, how are you? Would you like to come to Arsenal?’ ” The response? “ ‘That’s not a question you can ask me. Even for free, even if you buy me an air ticket tonight, I will be at Arsenal tomorrow morning. I love that club to death.’

“I didn’t say a word or sleep that night. But I told myself, even if this doesn’t happen then Arsène Wenger still wanted to buy you. He sees something in you. And I’m doing my best for Arsenal today.”

Born in Togo to Nigerian parents, his father was a money changer, his mother a dried meat seller. Ten of his family lived in two rooms, two brothers died of malaria and Adebayor contracted typhoid and yellow fever. Now his main home is a vast walled compound in Lomé, the capital of Togo, where crowds frequently wait outside hoping for money. Adebayor said that he has handed out about £15,000 to strangers. Last month he went on a “tour of hope” in West Africa.

“Footballers have a chance to help people,” he said. “Twenty years from now I’ll still be here in Togo and West Africa, helping some child to be what I have been. If I have done it, why not my brothers? Why not my friends? Why not my African people?”

Hear the full interview at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/o1jue/